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“Can we make it?” I asked aloud.
The answer was an easy, flat ‘no’. It was simply an impossibility, reaching the house before the magic faded entirely. I struggled to keep my calm, told myself that magic was impossible and yet here I was, but it did little use. Over the thunder of the engine the noise of a telephone could be heard, and was we near collided with a tree rounding the corner I saw the Old Gate, the city watches traditional station, a uniform bellowing orders by the phone line. The gate shuddered, and I squeezed my eyes shut tight as we tore beneath the arch, hearing the screeching contact of metal on metal as the iron bars scraped us by. Only paint, I told myself, only magical paint on an old rusty car.
I forced my head out the window, cropped hair billowing as best it could and saw three crested cars caught up behind the gate, the small triumph all we needed to buy us a minute or so to lose them. By then, however, my hair was coming decidedly undone, natural curls interrupting the sleek smooth cut and soon it would revert to what it was before, and I heard a distressed neigh in front of me, revealing that my chauffeur was now a horse driving far too fast across road that was increasingly more stubborn and rural.
I had heard eight five miles an hour was the top speed, but no doubt we were doing double that as the carnally guttered out, spluttering and shattering to pieces as it collapsed and rusted, throwing me through the space where there had once been a window. Screaming was inevitable as I was tossed into a pile of leaves, my dress exploding in a flurry of shining blue and when I rose to my feet, gasping for air, powder pink rags feel about me. I am not the fluttery type, but then and there I expected I would be in need of Anastasia’s smelling salts when I reached home. Shakily, I turned and found Galahad nibbling at the grass by the side of the way, having succeeded in bursting through the drivers door and out into the air, and I laughed despite being disorientated and in some degree of shock.
“At least one of us is unfazed.” I smile fondly, stroking his long neck and gently nudging him in the right direction. The woods were familiar, if only vaguely, and I could find my way home even at night. One hand cradling my slipper, the one I was able to keep, and the other toying with Galahad’s hair as I guided him down the old, unused road, my emotions were running high, and not just because of the bizarre transition between temporary fantasy and reality.
Ella, a four letter name that boasted two syllables. A common name, though it was pretty, and often short for something. Hardly a complicated thing to communicate, and yet she had hesitated, had seen the time and run as she should have. I had been stupid, yes, I should have been more aware of the time, but surely there had been room in the conversation beforehand where I might have told him my name? There was no real point in him knowing it, my melancholy self chastised my dreamy heart, but all of my being resoled that it would have been better to give a name, even if it was to merely give a name to a face soon forgotten.
When I reached home the girls and my stepmother were on my heels, their automobile honking as it turned into the courtyard seconds after I had closed the door. A race to the kitchen was what it was, burying my precious slipper in ash as the silly sisters stamped down stairs, demanding tea and biscuits and pick me ups in name of their poor nerves and aching feet. I did so obediently and without grudging them it, for surely they had not been given the pleasure of such a wonderful night as I did, even if it ended too abruptly for my liking.
By the weeks out I had convinced myself that it was my own misfortune, that I had permitted myself to carry a torch for someone who I had no hope of ever seeing again or possibly returning my esteem, let alone my affections and certainly not harbouring any interest concerning a future. My prospects were shallow in the eyes of anyone, let alone a prince. But, it’s not as though I had a dreadful amount of time to mope, no indeed I was kept busy by my stepmother, who’s sour disposition towards me was not aided by her daughters being upstaged despite her barring me from attending the ball. Imagine how displeased she was upon hearing over the radio news of a royal search for the girl who wore the glass slippers, knowing that neither of her daughters possessed such things.
With a sigh I dismissed such worries from my mind, for I was in my little corner of the kitchen, and there my troubles would only be my occupation, and I pulled my mothers dress into my lap, as busy hands are happy hands. This was my quite time, where I might do my chores in peace, the girls still in bed and Madame out calling on wealthy and sophisticated ‘friends’ in town. Sometimes I would pull out my slipper and muse over it, but sewing was not so bad and it was my mothers dress, after all. So I sat and sewed, humming a little and barely attempting to keep wonderful memories of a certain apprentice monarch at bay…
I could not get Kit out of my mind.